A Lesson In Seduction. Susan Napier
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his wife opened her mouth. ‘We’re going back to Taupo tonight and with her exhibition coming up she might not get the chance to visit again for a while...’
There was a hasty flurry of startled goodbyes as Rosalind found herself hustled out into the hall.
‘For heaven’s sake, what’s the big rush?’ she hissed as Jordan practically pushed her out the back door. ‘Did you see Olivia’s face? She looked awfully suspicious...’
‘Maybe she thinks you’re going to try and seduce me again,’ said Jordan sardonically, blocking the doorway as she made a tentative effort to go back inside.
Rosalind, who never blushed, went hot at the reminder of one of the most mortifying encounters of her life. ‘That was all a horrible mistake and you know it,’ she gritted fiercely. ‘I didn’t know you two had even met when I pretended to be Livvy... and anyway, nothing happened—’
‘Quite. There’s zero physical attraction between us. I know it, you know it, and Olivia certainly knows it. After all, even when I thought you were her and wanted you to turn me on, you failed miserably.’
‘OK, OK, I get the picture,’ Rosalind grumbled, jerking her elbow out of his grip. ‘But I might point out the failure was completely mutual.’
He grinned, his odd-coloured eyes warming with laughter. ‘True. So now we’ve finally got that out in the open maybe we can relax around each other. Olivia is beginning to worry that we intend to keep up the pussyfooting for ever.’
Rosalind grinned back, relinquishing the last vestige of embarrassment which had constrained her natural, exuberant friendliness. ‘Well, I guess if you can accept your total lack of sex appeal, so can I,’ she teased with deliberate ambiguity.
‘Big of you,’ said Jordan, ignoring the overt provocation. ‘Do you need a boost over that wall, or can you make it yourself?’
At five feet nine Rosalind wasn’t used to men treating her as a wisp of delicate femininity and she reacted with her usual bravado to the implied challenge. Waiting in the quiet cul-de-sac on the other side of the neighbours’ property a few minutes later, she brushed off her painfully grazed palms with a rueful acknowledgement that at her age maybe she should start thinking about putting dignity before daring.
Jordan’s car turned out to be a macho four-wheel drive, scarcely less attention-grabbing than Rosalind’s beloved fluorescent green VW, but, as he had predicted, the journalists outside the Marlows’ gate had let him go unhindered when he had forced his way through the gauntlet of their questions.
‘So...what’s the real reason why you offered me a lift?’ asked Rosalind quietly as they cruised towards the city. ‘Don’t tell me it was just to clear the air between us. You could have done that any time. It’s something to do with Livvy, isn’t it? Why she was looking so...pulled back there at the house...’
She watched Jordan’s big hands tighten betrayingly on the wheel, highlighting the nicks and scars that were the legacy of his work as a sculptor.
‘She’s pregnant,’ he said baldly.
The words hit her like a sharp blow. Rosalind’s ears rang and she felt a chill across the base of her skull and tasted metal on her tongue.
‘Pregnant?’ she whispered. She felt a floating sense of utter separation. Olivia. Her sister. Her twin.. the other half of herself...was going to have a baby...contribute to the growing brood of Marlow grandchildren?
Rosalind was shocked...and more; emotions boiled through her that she didn’t dare examine too closely.
‘I thought she didn’t want a family yet,’ she said, when she could get her stiff mouth to work. ‘She said she wanted to concentrate on her painting—’
‘I know,’ Jordan’s voice was clipped and slightly grim. ‘We agreed we were going to wait a few years...but fate evidently had other plans for us. Olivia found out last week—she’s still trying to come to terms with it herself; that’s why she doesn’t want to tell anyone just yet... No one else in the family knows and she wants to keep it that way for another few weeks. Apart from her own ambivalent feelings, there are one or two early warning signs, like elevated blood pressure, that the doctor is nervous about...’
Rosalind sensed rather than saw the sidelong look that Jordan gave her as he continued carefully, ‘It’s a little too soon to confirm it, but the doctor suspects from his physical examination that it could be twins...’
Twins. Of course, given their family history, it was only to be expected, but Rosalind’s sense of shock deepened. Livvy, the mother of not one child but two. The buzzing in her ears increased and she put her hand over her clenching stomach in sudden awareness. ‘Livvy’s been having dreadful morning sickness, hasn’t she?’
‘Yes; how did you know?’
Rosalind’s mouth twisted. ‘I’ve been a bit nauseous myself every morning for the past couple of weeks. I thought it was just nervous tension, or something I picked up doing that wretched film. The food was quite dreadful...’
Pregnancy was the one thing that she had firmly been able to rule out from her self-diagnosis. Oh, God! Her skin prickled with fresh horror. What if she had to suffer these shadow symptoms all through Olivia’s pregnancy? What an unspeakable irony that would be...
‘Well, Olivia’s been as sick as a dog and the doctor’s advised as little stress as possible in the next few weeks,’ said Jordan bluntly. ‘That’s why I was hoping that you’d graciously accept Connie’s offer. It would mean one less source of emotional turmoil for Olivia. If she thinks you’re frolicking happily in some nice, safe tropical haven she might stop beating herself up that she’s abandoning you in your time of need...’
‘So much for your wonderful idea of whisking me away to make up my own mind in my own time,’ said Rosalind, her sarcasm hiding a leap of relief that here was a cast-iron, honourable excuse for running away from her problems. If Livvy had a miscarriage, Rosalind would never forgive herself if there was even the slightest possibility that she was a contributing factor.
Jordan gave a rueful shrug. ‘I didn’t want to push it too strongly in front of Olivia. She wouldn’t thank me for trying to protect her, especially if it compromises her loyalty to you. If you don’t go to Tioman, Olivia intends to ask you to come and hole up with us at Taupo, even if it means dragging along your press contingent, not to mention your other little problem...’
Rosalind stiffened, her fingers clutching the seat as he suddenly swung sharply into a parking spot beneath the warehouse that housed her inner-city loft. ‘What other problem?’
Jordan switched off the engine. ‘You have so many you don’t know which one I’m referring to?’ he murmured, shaving much too close to the truth for her liking. ‘I’m talking about the fan who’s been making such a nuisance of himself.’
‘Oh.’ Aware of his shrewd eyes on her face, Rosalind tried not to reveal any of her turmoil as she probed warily, ‘Olivia told you about that?’
She couldn’t help a trace of outrage creeping into her voice, although, come to think of it, she had only asked that her twin not tell their parents, or their over-protective brothers.
‘We are married, Roz,’ said Jordan drily, effortlessly picking up the nuances. ‘That’s what marriage is all about—sharing a life, listening to each other’s secrets and worries. Olivia said you tried to treat it as a joke but the mere fact that you brought the subject up made her think you were a lot more concerned than you let on, and the tenor of some of the guy’s letters disturbed her. She thought they could be interpreted as stalking letters, said that he wrote as if he believed he had a personal relationship with you, one that gave him some sort of a claim on you...’
‘I told her I get lots of fans writing to me off and on—’
‘But this Peter is very persistent, Olivia said. You told her it had been going on for several years, and that lately he’d